“Eleven Minutes” by Paulo Coelho – Redemption of the Heart

Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho (Book cover)
Eleven Minutes is considered by most people as being Paulo Coelho’s most controversial piece of writing, mainly because it is centered on a rather unusual type of protagonist, a young prostitute.

While many people may have unsavory opinions of them, it is important to understand that many of them haven’t gotten into their lifestyle by their own choice… many are forced into it either by circumstances, or worse, people.

In any case, this is pretty much the kind of character we are presented wit here, with Maria, a young girl from a Brazilian village who had her heart shattered time and time again as a young girl. One day, she meets a Swedish stranger, and after he promises her fame and fortune, she leaves with him for Geneva.

Needless to say, Maria’s adventures went far from how she expected them to; she became a dancer at a restaurant. Eventually, Maria manages to become a high-class prostitute. However, this novel is about much more than simply telling the coming-of-age story of a young girl with an unfortunate life.

Paulo Coelho takes it much deeper as we are treated to rather philosophical diary excerpts from Maria’s diary. I won’t go into too much detail about them, but in the end it felt as if the book became an exploration of the nature of love and sexuality.

First of all, when I was reading this book I didn't really have an opinion one way or the other about the main character’s line of work. The way I see it, different people have different lives which lead them to different places, and it just so happens her life was led in an unfavorable direction. Perhaps this contributed to me not being completely able to care about what Maria went through.

Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho (Book cover)
However, what kept me going where the diary entries where Maria explores the baser human instincts which pretty much drive us to live on day after day and keep on going even through the darkest of times: love, passion, and sexual desire.

From what I understood, it seems that Paulo Coelho believes that one of humanity’s greatest mistakes was to willingly separate sex from love, and he makes a pretty good case for it with his novel. Whether or not he is right about it is only for you to judge.


Paulo Coelho (Author)

Paulo Coelho


Personal site

Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian novelist and lyricist, sometimes known by the name of Paul Rabbit. His unusual and deeply-moving novels have made of him one of the most widely-read authors today, earning him an array of international awards, including the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum. His most famous novel, The Alchemist, has been translated in over 67 languages to date.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

“The Locked Door” by Freida McFadden – Roots of a Lost Innocence

Image
  Freida McFadden has been quietly writing some exciting and original thrillers in her spare time from being a practicing physician, and The Locked Door is one of her latest offering in the genre.  It tells the story of Nora, a surgeon and daughter of a serial killer now in jail, who sees her life assaulted from the dark as someone begins to recreate her father's work with the exact same signature.
Read more

“The Lost Colony” by A.G. Riddle – A New Home Among the Stars

Image
A.G. Riddle's Long Winter Trilogy Series is one many of us will remember for the amazing story it brings of humanity's last stand against an overwhelming enemy in times of hopelessness. In The Lost Colony , the third book in the series, we follow James and Emma on their own respective struggles as humanity tries to settle itself on a new planet with an unseen danger none could have foreseen.
Read more

“Winter World” by A.G. Riddle – Ice Age from the Void

Image
A.G. Riddle is a true literary explorer seeking to push humanity to its limits and beyond, setting them on a desperate collision course with something beyond its understanding in Winter World . With a sudden ice age dawning on humanity entire swathes of land become uninhabitable and people begin dropping like flies, with anarchy reigning supreme. Looking to the stars for a miraculous solution, the remnants of humanity find a massive mysterious object floating near Mars ...whatever it is, our civilization's hopes of survival rest entirely in its hands.
Read more

“The Girl on the Stairs” by Barry Ernest – The Small Thorn you Can’t Ignore

Image
Girl on the Stairs , by Barry Ernest and with a foreword written by David Lifton, is an exploration of one specific aspect of the JFK assassination. More precisely, it looks into what a little girl by the name of Victoria Adams saw on that day while standing in the staircase of the Texas School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald was supposedly making his escape.  Actually, it is more about what she didn’t see than what she did see. Victoria was on the staircase Oswald supposedly used, at the exact same time he supposedly used it. If he were to be there, even the little girl she was, Victoria would have noticed a nervous man quickly running down the stairs. However, she says that on that day, she was alone there, with nobody to be found, especially Oswald.
Read more

“Three Comrades” by Erich Maria Remarque – The Other Side of the Barricade

Image
The two World Wars have been documented, discussed and depicted from virtually every perspective imaginable, ranging from small children caught in a crossfire all the way the leaders of each country. However, it seems that here is a startlingly small amount of attention dedicated to the small hiatus period between the two wars, a time during which many changes came to pass in Germany in a very short amount of time.
Read more